Reprogramming, making new friends, and committing high treason--K-2SO has had a strange day. [526]

“What’s your designation?”

“K-2SO,” he said. “And there is an 82.4% chance of our capture and mutual decommissioning.” If he had been organic, he would have stuttered–he did not plan to say that. Apparently that crack was the filter coding between his analytic systems and his vocoder.

Billy has lived through 53 matches. He’s been through California, Arizona, and Texas, but the smoke always tastes the same. Between the matches, Billy learned a lot about the white man’s world. His english is quick and polished now, as are his guns. [681]

Billy sits him down on the side of the bed and starts to undress him, hands so gentle that it's hard to believe how good they are at death. He works slow and methodical. In a quick-draw he's like the flare of a match, spark and then fire, but now he's taking his time, unbuttoning Goody's waistcoat, getting him down to shirtsleeves.

"Puritan," Goody says.

"Someone had to carry you back." [2039]

Billy has been less a Cesario than a Horatio, propping up the heartsick death-hunting prince, shielding him from the consequences of madness. Goody feels a great deal in common with Hamlet -- rumination, for one, and volubility for another, and of course idiocy and insanity. Billy is the heart's-friend who has come from afar to stand at his elbow and try to save him.

He expects to die in spite of Billy's best efforts, whether by poisoned foil or poisoned wine or letter to England or his own hand. But Billy, somehow, seems to have faith in him.

“Your mere existence has caused grief to more than one Roman, and now you’ve assured grief to one the rest of your days. How is that not reassuring?” Dagonet sits beside him on the cot and leans back, his body as relaxed as the innate wariness allows. “Besides, Arthur enjoys suffering.”

Lancelot laughs and turns his head, looking at Dagonet. “That is very true.” [888]

Dagonet grows up faster than the rest. Because of it, the Romans are more careful around him, giving caution to his greater size, though he hears the words they say, mocking him behind his back and calling him things they think he doesn’t understand. It’s almost funny that, save for Tristan, he is the one who best understands the Romans’ language and thus knows all that they say.

Lancelot, of course, takes offense. Lancelot takes offense at most everything though, so Dagonet refuses to be surprised when Lancelot corners him just outside the stables, glaring in the direction of the garrison as they go through their paces. [3352]

Lancelot glares at him, and Dagonet works very hard not to laugh. Lancelot is a ferocious sight when mad, a demon on land, spinning magic and death from his blades, but without a battle, he is merely a petulant boy pretending to be a man.

Bucky picks up odd jobs (gun running), delivers telegrams (money laundering), works at the factory (holds a gun to the back of the union leader). A lot of people in Brooklyn know Bucky Barnes, so Bucky waves hi to them when he walks around with Steve. Bucky Barnes is known for breaking absolutely anyone’s fingers when paid well to do it, but Steve definitely doesn’t exactly know that. “You sure are popular, Buck,” Steve says.

Bucky slings his arm around Steve’s shoulders. “I meet a lot of people,” he says. [1036]

Life in the Nova Corps meant odd hours and often random meal times, but this suited Garthan, most days. It meant that Errin's stall was quiet whenever he swung by, save for the odd tourist or two, and Errin knew better than to try small talk on an off-hours Corpsman trying to have a good meal in a bit of peace before going back on the beat.

Today, Garthan made it midway through the bowl before his perfect daily moment of peace was ruined by a tourist. Off-worlders were common on Xandar: the planet was an interstellar trading hub, after all, with free trade agreements signed with most intergalactic civs, but years in the Corps had given Garthan a healthy understanding of trouble, and this tourist positively reeked of it. [45,967]

"So the tree talks. Big deal." Rocket shrugs and knocks back another gulp of beer. "I can still take its boss out. I'll modify a flamethrower, add in some kick, and it'll be down in seconds. Fwoosh bam slam, little bit of an explosion, and I'm collecting credits before that mug of yours gets any uglier."

"This isn't some half-grown sapling, dumb ass," Treja snarls, her purple hair bouncing as she slams her own glass onto the table. She is nursing a broken arm and some thin, tendril-shaped bruises around her throat. "It's huge even by humanoid standards. And it grows fast. What makes you think that you can take it out when I couldn't, short stuff? I'm at least closer to its weight class than you are! If it knocked me out, you won't stand a chance-"

A/N: So I don’t know what this is, but even though I LOVE MCU!Sam (seriously, I was so excited about him and he turned out perfect and I’m still just as in love), a small part of me has a need for MCU!Sam who just stops and talks to birds. It’s sort of his thing in 616 and I missed it. Also there’s other stuff. Sam, as usual, is the only person with his shit together, but he got there the hard way. [6222]

Whatever role Bang Bang is going to have in the post-Stephen future, it's not going to be a silent one.

"I'll tell you -- a story. A true one. When we were young -- Bloom wasn't even -- he was eleven, I think, yeah, and all we had was the knowledge that we could get things from people. If we tried. And we would sneak into the movie theatres sometimes and see these -- ridiculous stories, really ridiculous, jewel thefts and trains and standoffs with guns in the desert, villains and heroes, and romance like nobody had ever lived. And I decided..." He pauses, gazing at the dregs in his glass. "I decided I was going to give Bloom the best damn adventure story there ever was. His life was going to have everything: money, travel, great escapes, explosions --" he lifts the glass in Bang Bang's direction "-- and a happy ending."

Vladivostok is not what Sasha expects. They live on a base, in an apartment twice the size of the one in Moscow. Aleksis is gone most days and does not come back until late at night. She misses him terribly and, with no friends and nothing to do, she rattles around the apartment like a loose screw.

"Go, meet people," Aleksis urges. They eat dinner at a small table. His arms are long enough that he can reach across it to cup her elbow. "They are friendly."

"They are scientists," she answers. "They have no use for me."

"I am a scientist," he teases, "and I have plenty of uses for you." [2946]

Newt splutters over her. “No–. I mean–. It’s not like that. Hermann and I aren’t like that.” And that’s how Newt ends up explaining sexuality to a wide eyed, 15 year old girl.

After he’s finished she smiles at him and says that being in love with someone and not having to have sex with them sounds nice, because sex sounds gross anyway. Newt hugs her so tight his arms start to hurt. [1070]

All in all, they get along fairly well, most of the time. If Aleksis finds himself watching Sasha with an eye that’s more appreciative than assessing at times, well, that’s his own business; Aleksis certainly isn’t going to bring it up, and if Sasha hasn’t done anything about it by now (he doesn’t fool himself that she hasn’t noticed), she probably never will.

When the Becket brothers were chosen out of nearly 200 other candidates, Yancy wasn't surprised in the least. You didn't need a genius level IQ or a football scholarship to pilot a jaeger. All you needed was a good partner.

Tendo Choi didn't want to sleep with an uninterested party, but he did really want to get laid with someone, at some point. It had been a long day, he had a condom in his pocket, and, besides, he quite enjoyed the entire ritual of sex. A few of his white gay friends had chided him for being the epitome of the promiscuous bisexual stereotype, but he didn't care. He was 21 and he wanted to have as much sex as he could in the time that he had. [1396]

All at the base said that the team of Cherno Alpha was one of humanities’ brightest hopes.
As much pride as they had, they were able to put it away for battle. When things really mattered, they were unstoppable.

For the better part of fifteen years, archery is a hobby because when the Army said that they wanted Clint to know how to shoot everything, they meant firearms, things with bullets and missiles and grenades, things that require combustion and gunpowder and make noise and heat. So Clint learns and he learns well, getting used to the sore shoulder from the stock of his rifle, to the tinkle of hot casings from belt-fed machine guns, to the way life looks different and strange through telescopic sights and night vision optics. [6339]

“He’s dangerous. He has trust issues that we may not be able to breach, he will not like working with others, he will lie to us about his motivations every chance he gets and, most likely, be successful every time.” Coulson’s gaze drifted back to the empty chair Barton had chosen earlier, boxed in the corner yet protected on as many sides as possible. “It won’t be easy, but if we can win his loyalty he has the potential to be the asset we’re looking for.”

Fury agreed, though neither of them would ever dream that they already had Barton’s loyalty, or that the price it cost was so steep. [70,417]

He hasn’t got on with his brother since they hit puberty. It started small, just squabbles over who got the last chicken leg at dinner, but then at one drunken banquet Kili started making bitter, angry comments about how Fili’s smithing was dishonouring their noble ancestry and Fili told him archery was far too elvish for any dwarf who cared at all about his people – and Kili threw a punch that nearly broke his nose. The next morning Dis locked them in a room and forced them to talk, and Kili came out with two cracked ribs. Family gatherings have been tense and awkward ever since, and they haven’t spoken without coming to blows in a long time.

"Look after your sister," were the last words Dis said to Kili before he and Fili left their home in the mountains for the lowlands, traveling to join their uncle at his forge in one of the towns of Men. Fili was standing right next to him, which made their mother's admonition all the stranger: why would Dis tell Kili to take care of Fili, when she was so clearly the taller and stronger of the two of them? Fili was better than he was with a sword or an axe, could outwrestle him four falls out of five, and already had a beard and mustache long enough to braid while Kili was still checking in every reflective surface for a hint of stubble. It felt disrespectful even to think of protecting Fili, as though all the years Fili had spent protecting him -- from the taunts of other children, from the dangers of the wild, even from their own parents, sometimes -- suddenly meant nothing, and without even looking he could sense she had gone stiff with hurt at their mother's words. There was no trace of it in Fili's voice as she said her farewells, and Kili, as in all things, followed her lead, but they were barely out of sight of their home before he reached for his sister's hand.

"Don't be frightened," she said immediately, just as he'd known she would, squeezing his fingers tight. "I'm right here."

He never feels more alive than in the moment when the doors begin to open. He never feels more loved than when the children stream into the cold, chubby legs pumping, little faces red. When he plays with them, breathless and laughing, he is one among a crowd, and it is not as noticeable that they do not call his name. He can ignore that their eyes skim past him. [832]

He closes his eyes and thinks about his days, which are filled with performing for people he doesn’t know and staying away from those he does. He’s used to going through life on autopilot, never letting himself feel much of anything, but there is one thing that ties his life together—the calmness, the security of crawling into his nest of blankets at night, high above the ground. For Clint, the world is so much better when seen from a distance.

By the time Kenneth gets to the state home, the desire for love is replaced for the desire for anything other than cool disdain or anger. He makes the other boys laugh and tries his hardest to be smarter for the social workers. While the other children play, Kenneth sits on the stairs repeating, "See Spot run. Run, Spot run." He is thirteen and thinks that if he could just learn to read, someone would want him. [1031]

This time the look that Hoover and Tolson shared said too much and Green felt his stomach roil with nausea. "I'm sure you'll think of something," Tolson said after a moment, his steely gray eyes boring into Green's. "It's your job on the line." [3151]

Her next team—two men, one of them really still a boy, one of them nearly ready for retirement—trips over their tongues when talking to Brandt. Oh, they’re fine on a mission, there really aren’t that many ways to scream that you’re about to get shot, but when no one’s life is in danger, they can’t say a word.

They’re requisitioning uniforms one day and the younger one says, “Do you need, uh, a different size? Because you’re, you know, uh, you know.”

“A what?” says Brandt. “Part Irish? Over thirty? Tall? Short? Medium? Snappy in a suit? Good at archery? A dog lover, a musician, a soldier in Afghanistan? A trained penguin?” [1338]

Warnings: The story's about someone with a learning disability, and there's internalized negativity about it as well as verbal abuse from other characters. There's also vaguely-alluded to unpleasantness with Trickshot, which I didn't get into because comics canon terrifies me. PM me if you need more information about potential triggers. ♥

Notes: This fic was inspired by Hawkeye's scene in the beginning of the Avengers, when he makes the observation about the Tesseract being a door. One of the positive things about dyslexia is that it can mean a person comes at a problem from a different angle. [3999]

After a particularly brutal fight, he wakes up - buck-ass naked, of course - chest throbbing. Thor reaches a hand down, pulls him up and into a great hug, mindless of Bruce’s nudity, the scales of his armor cool against Bruce’s sore limbs.

“You have much to carry,” Thor says, wrapping an arm around Bruce to help him over the broken concrete of a building he’d just destroyed. “We have words for this on Asgard. That a great burden is made light by many hands.” [1418]

'Natasha knows best' is the first house rule. There are a lot of unwritten corollaries to it like, 'except in the kitchen' and 'unless Coulson is diametrically opposed', but it still holds in most situations.

Clint is arguing fruitlessly against this tenet.

“I know my body!” he protests.

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting I don’t?”

Clint proves he’s recovered enough to have the blood pressure to blush.

In the tongue-tied pause Phil says, “We’re not leaving you alone in the shape you’re in. It’s entirely up to you whether you stay here awake, or drugged into unconsciousness.”

They don’t write rule books for bisexual threesome relationships where all the committed parties are trained government killers, so Phil isn’t sure if this situation counts as ‘ganging up’ or ‘democracy’. Since it’s how they settle almost all disputes he decides to give them the benefit of the doubt. [2613]

Coulson gets him a brand new recurve bow and some grips and gear and takes him to Beirut to sit on a roof for fifteen hours in the fucking sun. Bow in hand, and Clint remembers this feeling from the circus: the feeling of the bow in his hands, the steadying of his breathing, the way he focuses in on the target, the rest of the world an insignificant blur.

Except this time, when Clint makes the shot, sweat is dripping into his eyes, arms burnt from the sun, he has an opening most snipers would consider not enough time, and instead of applause, all he has is a bored suit telling him, “Bring it in, Barton. You’re done,” like assassinating people with bows and arrows is a normal thing to do. [12,570]

Cougar keeps popping up next to Jensen after that. And much like Jensen's sudden influx of facial hair, Jensen decides to keep him.

The others initially shoot Cougar questioning looks which get ignored. After several days everyone seems content that their team is still a finely tuned instrument of badassery and explain the change in dynamics in their own unique ways.

Jensen is honestly a bit concerned at the way some of their minds work.

-----

It's strange, but Jensen finds a routine with Cougar. It's almost comforting.

If they're on the move, Jensen knows without looking that Cougar is at his four. If they're making camp, he knows Cougar will be bunking down next to him. If Jensen starts to ramble, Cougar will only hush him if it might endanger the mission or if Hajjar is starting to twitch. Which really, he should probably get that looked at by a doctor, 'cause it's getting bad.

And when Jensen has food in his hand, he knows Cougar is there looking at it longingly from under his hat.

He's not stupid. He knows the food is why Cougar keeps popping up, but he finds he doesn't mind. If anything, it's leverage, 'cause no one but him is offering to share their rations with Cougar.

Griffin grits his teeth against the electricity pulsing through his body and tries not to black out again.

He's twenty four. If he dies today, he's lived eighteen years longer than the average.

He once met a jumper who was fifty seven. An old man who survived by never jumping—walking from place to place and playing the normal human for all it was worth. If Griffin hadn't tracked him down, no one would ever have found him.

If Griffin skews the statistics at twenty four, how much would a fifty seven year old change the average? Enough that most jumpers die a week or two after their first jump? [3611]

Loki would never call Sif easily offended, but he had spent no small portion of his life practicing the fine art of stoking her ire. The only problem he saw was the fact that, this once, he hadn’t actually done anything. [3477]

That niggling, this might be a bad idea feeling got stronger, and Amanda made the conscious effort not to grip the table. She just wanted to prove that Sarek was wrong, but this had the capacity to get way out of hand really fast. Forget career-destroying — this could be catastrophic for the talks.

"Nothing, I'm sure it's fine," he said. That he sounded so sure was clearly an effort to lull her into a false sense of security, because then he said, "Anything you want said at your funeral?"

It turned out that George Kirk, by dint of being Midwesterner and a genuinely nice guy, somehow ended up being the guy who people ended up crying to when things went south with Winona Macawi. And because George Kirk was the only person other than the Captain, the XO, and the chief engineering officer (whom, apparently, Winona hated with the passion of a thousand suns for reasons George refused to discuss because it was hearsay and apparently, George didn't gossip, he just informed) who hadn't slept with Winona Macawi or had his heart broken by her, people thought he was the safe guy to turn to in order to hate on her.

"So what you're saying," she hedged, "is that maybe I shouldn't have let her go off alone."

He gave her a long, almost pitying look. "No, I'm sure it's fine," he said finally. "I mean, what could possibly go wrong?" [7910]

"I read the fucking report," says Win, making for the exit, "and you are quite right, it is a major fucking balls-up and you should have spaced the bastard, but you command-bitches never have a lick of sense. Who is this?" she adds, jerking her head at the Vulcan keeping pace with them.

"The science officer who realized there was a problem," says Pike. "His name is --"

"I shall call him Tiny Science-bitch," decides Win. "Since he was intelligent enough to alert you, I will allow him to help me fix the problem."

"Win, for God's sake --"

Win points at Pike. "Silence, Command-bitch!"

Pike rolls his eyes, but she has a baby album of pictures from his first year at Academy, so she allows him his rebellion. [1390] [This is, in fact, my favorite thing lazulisong has ever written. It posits What if Jim was not a personality-clone of his father, but a more sane version of his mother? I seriously laughed so hard that I got hiccups.]

Prompt: Can I just have lots of asexual Steve/Bucky cuddles and support and non-sex based relation of awesomeness, yet still obviously a romantic relationship?

Bonus points for creating a movie!headcanon for Steve meeting Bucky again in the future when asexuality is more of a known thing and they have a word for what they were (granted the word existed in the 40's it just didn't have the distribution it has now) [1935]

"That was some nice navigation," he says, and she smiles, pleased by both the compliment and the deep set eyes framed by high cheekbones.

"Thanks." She strokes the nav console appreciatively, the same way she sometimes sees humans pat their dogs. The gesture isn't very logical, but she doesn't care. Ships talk to her. Even simulated ones.

His eyes flick down to her pink lacquered nails, and she wonders if he's checking her out -- the color does look lovely against her green skin, after all -- but instead he pats his own console and says, "Yeah, she's not bad for a simulator."

Many people, Eames would find out later, assumed Eames had wanted Arthur from the moment they'd met. It was true Arthur was devestatingly attractive, but in all honesty, the first thing Eames had thought when he'd met Arthur was, Why did Cobb bring his son? (Or: It's all about trust.) [3628]

She misses the times when he would call her his pear blossom, his sweet dumpling, and she would look at him and call him her brave soldier. She hates the Huns, and she hates the Emperor, and above all else she hates war. The war took her husband away and gave her back a stranger.

Clay handpicked his team. He knew better than anyone that even as a unit, they were a few wires short of a full fuse.

One too many blows on the head, Jensen liked to say. None of them signed up for the buzz or the combat glamor that being Special Forces promised. They all did it because somehow or other, they were all fucked in the head enough to think that what Clay offered sounded like a fucking fantastic idea.

Again, Clay knew better than anyone just how fucked up they all were. [2723]